2023 - Winner for Best Practices in Recruiting, Retaining, and Training Poll Workers

Searching for a way to save postage, the office redesigned its voter information cards to include a postcard return for voters to express interest in being part of the elections team. Over 1,200 voters responded. As a small county with less than 75,000 voters, this response represented over four times the number of 2020 election workers. To measure the respondents' level of commitment, the office also implemented an election worker orientation program. This orientation provided an opportunity to learn what it means to be an election worker, ranging from training, election security, the process behind elections, the number of hours required, and a culture of community and service. In 2020, the office struggled to find election workers, often relying on county employees to fill critical positions with too few election workers assigned as alternates. With the implementation of the ROAR program, the county has nearly doubled the election worker pool, expanded the number of positions to improve workflow, and trained 428 election workers for the 2024 presidential preference primary. Building a culture where election workers want to be a long-standing part of the countys election team is a win-win for voters and the community.